The cost of living

Having recently decided to try and release myself from a company car that costs me a lot of tax every year, I am now starting to look for a replacement car on a limited budget. The process has been a finely-tuned weighing of pro's and con's - on the pro side of the company car, I don't pay for repairs, servicing, road tax or insurance - on the con side, the car is tied up during the day when my wife could be using it, and it costs about £1000 as a taxable benefit.

The major expense (after buying the car itself), is probably going to be insurance, so I am particularly interested in locating the cheapest auto insurance network that is available. Of course, if I am really unlucky, it is quite possible that repair bills could easily overtake all other costs. Any car that I am likely to buy will be in the region of six years old which is about the time they start to generate expensive repair bills in my experience. I am still hopeful that I might be allowed to buy my current company car although I am some way short of being able to afford the market value. On the other hand, I have had a lot of fun browsing through the cars for sale websites and seeing what I could end up driving for the next few years.